Your Disobedient Child? Maybe It's Going to Be OK

Let’s do a thought experiment. You are with a classroom of kindergarteners. The teacher has left for a few minutes and told you to stay with the children. Next thing you know, the fire alarm goes off. What do you do if there’s no way to call someone before making the decision?

Source: Bricolage / Shutterstock

I think most of us would gather the children and take them to the designated meeting place for fire drills. Now, what if, rather than being an adult, you are just one of the kindergarteners? Is it still the right thing to do to gather the students and take them outside?

OK—you got me. The story is about me—and it took place decades ago, but it’s seared in my brain. I had broken a rule, and I got yelled at. It was the first time I got in trouble—the first time I wasn’t “the good child.” I was so ashamed, I couldn’t tell my parents what happened. In fact, I told them a big fat lie instead. I told them I couldn’t go to school the next day because we were going to swim, and I didn’t have a bathing suit. They somehow managed to maintain their composure and ask me how we were going to swim, since there wasn’t a pool at our school. I doubled down; they didn’t know there was a pool underneath the big circles in the gym. The teachers just lifted the floor, and the pool was underneath it. I think this is when they finally burst out laughing—embarrassing me even more. They eventually found out what happened, weren’t mad at me, and sent me back to school the following morning.

Obedience Isn't Always Doing the Right Thing

I think back on that event as a much older human and wonder why I was punished for doing something that was a pretty logical step and could have been a safety win if there had been a fire. It could have started a valuable conversation about decision-making instead of just a scolding. But it was the first of a childhood full of getting the message that obedience trumped all other choices. Be a good girl, do as you're told, and you will get along just fine. Teaching children to follow rules and behave is essential to their safety and to their ability to succeed in learning and taking care of themselves and others. At the same time, children also need to learn and practice healthy disobedience—to speak up for their safety and values and for those around them—because it turns out these are also essential tools in adulthood.

Children say no and break rules for many reasons. Typical development requires them to express their needs and assert their independence—creating necessary conflict and challenges that will pass as they develop and learn new skills. And then there will be a new developmental period requiring the next level of self-expression and boundary pushing. And so it goes. Adults push back with safety and educational limits—and most children learn and move forward.

Some kids and teens will have persistent challenges with following rules and instructions, for many different reasons. There can be developmental challenges such as learning or language differences, neurodevelopmental patterns such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or autism, mismatches between adult expectations and child developmental abilities, family and community stressors, trauma and loss, sleep problems, health or pain issues, or mental health challenges such as depression, anxiety, or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

In my work over many decades, I have often encountered tremendous fear when children struggle to follow rules and do as they are told. Parents fear their child will never be safe or successful if they continue to be oppositional or defiant. They fear they have failed and that their child is showing signs of being antisocial or amoral somehow. Parents are understandably angry, frustrated, and exhausted by their child’s willfulness and pushback on every single task. And it is exhausting. I know. I have parented in similar circumstances—and being a child psychiatrist didn’t make it less challenging, initially.

Expanding Perspectives on the Child Who Always Pushes Back

As a parent, things shifted for me when I began to practice more of what I taught each day with families and educators. I needed to broaden my definition of child and parenting success beyond obedience. I worked on acceptance and compassion and on noticing what they were doing rather than just what they weren’t. I worked on settling my own anxiety about their future and all the “what ifs” that piled on when homework wasn’t done or they couldn’t sleep until the early morning hours.

Source: Robert Keneschke / Shutterstock

When this "challenging" 10-year-old child of mine signed up to be a “lunch monitor,” helping out during the younger children’s lunch period, they found themselves being left to care for a large group of children who were newly in the country, spoke little English, and weren’t eating the unfamiliar food in the lunchroom—some even throwing up. My disobedient kid asked for adult help, and there was pushback because, “Didn’t they ‘sign up’ to be a lunch monitor—didn’t they want this?" But they knew the younger kids were scared, and they needed a grown-up who spoke the language.

My child’s journey also included treating mental health issues and getting the needed support at school. There was no one magic answer. But I had to broaden my view before we could move forward—and my family and many others I have worked with have discovered that obeying authority isn’t the only metric for growing into a moral and successful human. Helping children find their voice and their values, even when they struggle to be “the well-behaved child,” can give them more space to do what they are told but not hesitate to disobey when their values are threatened.